david and spiderman

Our downstairs neighbor, David, is a good guy. He likes to sit on the front stoop in the evening and drink a beer or read the paper. Over the last year I’ve gotten to know him about as well as you can know anyone through casual, neighborly conversation. At first I mistook his tone and Ivy League pedigree for snobbishness, but I can now say that he’s a genuinely nice person (and probably a little lonely). We always talk about getting together and having a drink, but it never seems to materialize. David works as an art director for major motion pictures – an incredibly demanding and stressful job. At times there are up to two-hundred people working under him. He doesn’t strike me as the type to get off on that sort of control, though. He’d always much rather ask what I’ve been up to lately than talk about himself. When I can get him to tell stories, he does so in the same matter of fact manner that someone who worked in a bank or a corporate office might. It’s always refreshing to meet someone successful who has maintained their modesty, especially in the arts.

Right now, David’s working on Spiderman III, which is filming in New York. Last week I stopped and talked with him for a while and he told me about the shoot they’d been working on in Chinatown. For six straight fourteen-plus hour days, a massive crew shot a scene that will be on camera for a total of less than three minutes. As much respect as I have for him and anyone that works in the field, nothing could be less artistically appealing to me. Needing so many people to do the same thing over and over again would just suck the life out of it for me. I can barely handle playing in a band – the thought of working creatively with that many people is horrifying. Way too many cooks in that kitchen.

Last night they were shooting a scene just around the corner from us (apparently one of the perks of being an art director is that you can shoot in your own neighborhood). During the day they blocked off many of streets in the neighborhood while they set up. In the afternoon, Julia and I saw David outside the Cobble Hill Cinema, which was in the middle of being transformed into Stuyvesant Town Cinema. Although David was in the middle of giving someone instructions, he took the time to say hello and invited us to come back at night to watch them filming.

I stopped by the set before and after meeting my old friend, Gabe, for dinner. It was quite a spectacle – there was a huge neighborhood crowd, many of whom were helping themselves to the crew’s buffet table. The amount of lighting and assorted machinery was staggering – there had to be at least twenty trucks full of gear, taking up parking all over the neighborhood. I think I walked past the SUV that Tobey Maguire had just gotten into, because it was surrounded by screaming teenagers trying to take pictures before it sped off. There was a huge smoke machine, pumping continuously, and people talking into headsets hurrying in every direction. I didn’t see David, but I’m sure he was in the middle of the chaos, just doing his job.